Marc Scaringi: Pelosi's Failed Gamble

Chip Somodevilla / Getty ImagesSpeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi walks back to her office after leaving the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 10, 2020, in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has finally decided to send her much-beloved and overindulged articles of impeachment from their comfy nook in the cozy confines of her House of Representatives to the harsh, cold reality of the U.S. Senate. There, like a baby lamb being led to its slaughter, the articles will meet a quick death.

Though we’ve always known how the story will end, Pelosi still managed to inject some drama into it with her childish and feckless attempt to hold on to the ball until she got what she wanted.

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In a break with precedent, Pelosi stunned the nation by refusing to immediately transmit the articles to the Senate after they were approved in the House. Her purported reason? She wanted to know what rules the Senate would adopt so that she could decide which House managers to appoint before transmitting the articles to the Senate.

The real reason is she thought she could pressure Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell into agreeing to call certain witnesses, including acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and former National Security Advisor John Bolton, and produce certain documents Democrats thought would bolster their case.

But Pelosi’s pressure campaign was doomed to fail. Oddly, she thought she could get something from McConnell by withholding from him something he didn’t want. Where did Pelosi learn how to negotiate? She obviously hasn’t read The Art of the Deal.

He said there “will be no haggling with the House over Senate procedure,” and declared he would convene the trial without agreeing to call Democrats’ requested witnesses. Then, in a brilliant maneuver, Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri introduced a resolution to amend Senate rules to allow a motion to dismiss articles of impeachment for lack of prosecution.

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“If Speaker Pelosi is afraid to try her case, the articles should be dismissed for failure to prosecute and Congress should get back to doing the people’s business,” Hawley said in a statement.

McConnell signed on to the resolution. Pelosi was trapped.

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Confronted with the embarrassment of having the articles dismissed because of her failure to prosecute her case, Pelosi did a volte-face and declared she’s sending the articles over and soon even though she didn’t get what she wanted from McConnell.

Game over. Pelosi folded like a cheap pantsuit.

Perhaps she should brush up on her gambling skills by listening to some old Kenny Rogers songs. Contrary to what some of her acolytes in the House say, she clearly didn’t know when to hold them or fold them. In fact, she shouldn’t have been sitting at the table in the first place. She has zero constitutional authority to try to dictate terms to the U.S. Senate.

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Pelosi, the self-declared “master legislator” and “strategic, politically astute leader” of the House of Representatives, proved herself to be more like the fool on the hill instead of the master of the Hill. The real Gambler, who supports the president, by the way, would not be impressed.

Fresh from her bloodbath at the poker table, Pelosi got desperate. She charged that Senate Republicans, if they refuse to call her requested witnesses, would be engaged in a “cover-up.”

Yet Pelosi had the opportunity but chose not to compel those same witnesses to testify at her impeachment hearings in the House. She claimed it would take too long in the courts and that in the meantime Trump would steal the 2020 election.

To Pelosi, her refusal to call certain witnesses in the House is a patriotic act to save the republic and protect the integrity of our elections, but Senate Republicans’ refusal to call those same witnesses? Well that’s a “cover-up.”

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None of Pelosi’s justifications come anywhere close to being credible. But that doesn’t really matter. Pelosi knows she’s lost the impeachment charade. That’s why she’s reduced herself to making the taunts that sore losers make.

Pelosi recently bragged, “This president is impeached for life, regardless of any gamesmanship on the part of Mitch McConnell.”

True. But Trump will be acquitted in the Senate. That will exonerate and vindicate him in the eyes of the American people.

And, when Trump wins re-election and wins decisively, Pelosi’s impeachment will go down as one of the worst political defeats in U.S. history.

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That defeat will be laid at the feet of Nancy Pelosi, who stupidly bet the house on a poor hand and lost in her biggest gamble as speaker of the House.

This failed impeachment very well may cost Democrats the House of Representatives and Pelosi her speakership. That stigma will last for the rest of her life.

The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website.

Marc A. Scaringi, Esq., is an attorney in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a radio talk show host of “The Marc Scaringi Show” on WHP and iHeart Radio and a Donald J. Trump-endorsed delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention. Follow Marc on Twitter @MarcScaringi